• HOME AGAIN

    You can go home againdespite what the author saidbut home won’t be home anymoreso perhaps the author was right.It used to be a little used beltwaystrangling the already smalldowntown, a sunken dream ofsome city planner with myopia.Now they have filled that inand lined it with apartments;here an array of identical, stacked boxes,the blocks of an…


  • I WISH

    You probably imagine thatthe life of the poet is one of greatexcitement and adventure.There are moments that mightbe deemed exciting or adventurousbut those happen just as oftenin the lives of those who despise poetry.And believe me, poetry is not onlynot a career, it’s not a job unless yousit in some city square and offerto write…


  • WITHOUT

    He pretty much hated the outdoorscamping was a wholly alien conceptin parks for places for at besta short visit, a picnic lunchand then back in the car and home.He was not even a fan of the partsin the heart of the city, for theydrew crowds and he did notlike to be around other people.He wanted…


  • SOPHIE

    She maintained an aura of what sheimagined was elegance, a carefullyconstructed persona carried outin the most careful details. Her furniture had slipcovers, lestsomeone spill and mar the fabric,a tea cart always at the readyalthough I never saw her serve tea. She spoke with carefully chosenwords, certainly not the vernacularof the city, perhaps of Londonwhere she…


  • AFOOT, A CITY

    As you walk the streetsof a city like New York,you hear a polyglot of languages,and closing your eyes youmight have no idea where you were. Listen carefully, eavesdropon conversations, imagine the storiesthey are telling, the joysand heartbreak laid bare before you,half heard, half filled into make the story palatable to you. Life in the city…


  • CURFEW

    We sat in the cramped kitchenhuddled around the stovethe open oven door spreadinga faint warmth that barelyslid through the winter chill.The bare bulb in the ceilingstrained and flickeredfighting to hold as the generatorswere shut down, and darknessenveloped our small world.The sky was lit by the flaresand the odor of exploding shellsseeped through the towelsealed windows…


  • SENSO-JI

    By hour six, the plane was just a lumbering beast dividing the sky, halfway from God knows where to nowhere special. His body cried for sleep but he knew he had to deny it. That much he had learned from prior trips. For when he landed, made his way painfully slowly into the city, it…


  • LUNA’S SONG

    Tonight, when the sunhas finally conceded the dayto its distant but ever larger kin,the moon will again singher ever waning songhoping we will joinin a chorus we haveso long forgotten,bound to the earthin body and in waxing thought. We will stop and listenperhaps, over the dinof the city, the traffic,the animals conversingwith the sky, our…


  • CITY OF DREAMS

    I live in city thatisn’t a city at all,despite what it callsitself. It is a suburbof suburbs, whichin Florida can passfor a city. The birds ignorethe gates and wallsand come and gofreely. We live insidethe gates and wallsand remember livingin a real city.


  • ANCESTRY

    Children have an innate senseof their ancestry.I was a child of the cityit’s streets my paths, alwaysunder the watchful eyeof my warden – mother. Dirt was to be avoidedat all possible cost,so I never dug my handsinto the fertile soil of myvillage in the heart of Lithuania,or tasted the readying harvestthat dirt would remember. I…